Jan. 3, 1917
My Dear Mother: -
We rec. the Toledo Blade today with the parts of my letter, referring to Troop D. Our fellows & our Captains think the write-up is a peach, but the officers & men of the troop are all up in the air over it. They haven't denied any of it, though they are all angry because it was printed.
Capt. Greenhalgh told the men, as we have heard that he wanted anyone with a medical hat-cord on kicked out of their Co. street. He also said that they could "settle it" with the guy, who sent that letter home, or that he would carry it up himself.
One of their serg't and I had a peach of an argument about it.
I spoke to our capt. about it & he said that I shouldn't tell Greenhalgh to take it up if he wanted to, but he said if he did he would add some more on to my story.
When Capt. Souder went home on his furlough he gave Troop D. an awful knock in a speech he made at the Rotary Club.
One of our serge. told me that Capt. Watson wrote a hot letter to Toledo Commerce Club roasting the Troop.
Our bunch take it as a joke & some said that if they kept up with the "soft soap" stuff they would also write a similar letter & tell some more.
As for myself, I'm not worrying over it, for if their capt. takes it up I have 71 men & our officers to provide my statements, and Capt Wilson is anxious to get a chance at them.
Everything is going along just the same in our outfit, and we still think we will be ready to leave about the last of March.
Wouldn't advise you to stick any more in the paper until we see how they are going to digest the big mouthful they now have.
Love to All
Howard
Well, I came up short on the letters I was hoping to get. The Toledo Blade and the (now defunct) Toledo News-Bee have some editions online, but the one with Howard's letter was not available. Perhaps someday I'll make it up to pour through microfilm at the University of Toledo to see what exactly what was so scandalous about Troop D. Above is a version of the Blade to give you an idea of what it looked like in the time period, but it's not the version. It was still a pretty interesting read to see the build-up in Europe to World War I and the coverage on Villa in Mexico. Check out the Google Archives for the Toledo News-Bee and the Toledo Blade. Just be aware that someone misplaced a bunch of 1946 newspapers in the Blade in December 1916.
I did find a little about the warm-and-fuzzy Capt. Greenhalgh from onlinebiographies.info. Although the Captain was a midwestern boy (born in St. Louis, raised in Indiana/Illinois), he graduated from Yale and Harvard Law and was Lucas county's assistant prosecutor before being ordered into Federal service in El Paso. Doesn't exactly sound like the type that would be entirely relatable to the boys. He went on to become a Colonel in Europe and after the war became president of the Toledo Automatic Brush Machine Company. There are also mentions of him showing his polo ponies in various texts on Google...oh the charmed life of ol' Greenhalgh.
No comments:
Post a Comment